Ethiopian School Takes Shape

Good news, even if it is late in coming, is still good news. The Maru-Chebot First Cycle Elementary School in the Berga wetland area of Ethiopia is expanding its classroom space with a new building as you can see in this progressive triptych. The authorities are planning to add a grade level a year starting with 5th this year and going up to 8th. As we must remind ourselves, these simple additions will make a world of difference in the lives of the kids, the little girls especially. The walk to the nearest school with the higher grades is 5km, a distance tantalizingly close but out of reach for many and again, for many of the girls. So many good things come with the education of young girls and women, a set of correlations that others have firmly established through the heart-wrenching stories of individual girls or through the coldly analytical quantitative analysis. Both ways to tell the story can be effective, often to different audiences, and both are necessary. In this case, we hope to see it for a group of kids whose faces have shown through on these pages time and time again.

As I wrote last fall, it was some of our support that directly helped make this building take shape. Modest funds earlier this year went directly to purchased the corrugated steel sheets that constitute the roof. Some subsequent support, just a few hundreds of dollars from some who wanted to advance their donations, went over this fall to help outfit the new building with windows.

At the same time, Geremew highlights continuing challenges for different aspects of this integrated development program. The health extension workers, two women with one year of training apiece, have knowledge but little in the way of supplies to dispense to the needy population. When I visited in November 2007, their one room was stocked with a range of supplies provided by UNICEF. No longer. Geremew writes that they are mostly without health commodities and supplies to give out. I’ve talked to some good friends in Ethiopia who work in health services and we are hoping to find some stop gap assistance. But stock outs as they call them continue to be a long term challenge.

Two Forward, One Back

This blog features two types of posts.

One catalogs the needs of a particular community in the Ethiopian highlands a few hours drive from the capital Addis Ababa. I visited over a year ago and was humbled and impressed with their diversified approach to providing for the community’s residents young and old, male and female. Building on support from conservation organizations interested initially in their wetland area as one of two homes for an otherwise unremarkable ground nesting bird, the White-winged Fluffftail, this community and its partners fashioned a program that provided health, education, micro-credit, and livelihood services. I’ve tried to provide a glimpse of their struggles and ingenuity in meeting those challenges.

The second type of post has been about my effort, a contrivance really, to help motivate myself to get in shape. I set out to lose weight and convince fiends and family to make per pounds lost pledges that would be donated to this community. I started at the beginning of May 2008 and set myself an end of December 2008 deadline. Summer and the early fall showed some gradual but appreciable success in losing weight as previous posts and the right column counter has documented.

Then October and work and travel kicked in. The gains from what can only be defined as sublime food in Barcelona were not sufficiently balanced by Delhi belly the next week. The results on the weight loss front plateaued and eventually starting falling back. I had reached 27 pounds lost at one point which is a lot by many measures but little more than a good start for someone who started this effort in the high 200s.

And sadly my most recent weigh in (the first in over a month) put me ending the year at just 17 down. I weighed in December 29th at my mother in-laws in Ringe, Denmark. While it is appealing to highlight all the temptations spending two weeks in Germany and Denmark with friends and family, that would be a temporarily satisfying but ultimately counterproductive dead end rationalization. Same for the “I’m too busy (or tired) to exercise” -- comprehensible but unconvincing. And counter-productive on so many levels.

So like so many others as well as my own previous bouts with weigh loss (for it feels constantly like a fight), pounds lost come with pounds gained back. I’ll be in touch with all of you who have so kindly pledged support to figure out whether to continue what really should be two life-long efforts: supporting communities in need and taking care of one’s own health. I have appreciated all the kind words and support throughout.

Two Big Boosts for Berga!

Wow! We just got TWO big boosts for Berga!

The first one was in the mail when I came home from a trip to the United Nations in New York. A small envelope held a big surprise. It was a check for $100 for the Berga project from two close friends of my parents. Mom and Dad had gotten to talking with them about my losing weight to raise money for the needy community in the Berga wetlands of Ethiopia. They showed them this Losing Pounds for Berga website and it prompted them to send a check AND pledge $2 per pound for weight lost beyond the 21 pounds I had already lost at that time.

One line in their hand-written note struck a chord. “This is just the kind of thing we like to support – people helping people without a lot of hullabaloo and hierarchy.” They definitely took the right message from the website. That is definitely my approach!

And here is a preview of the second big boost for Berga that shows even modest efforts can make a big difference. I got an email this week from Geremew Selassie, the head of the Ethiopian Wildlife and Natural History Society. He sent photos of the community receiving the boxes of school supplies and the 66 sheets of corrugated steel the community decided to buy with the money we raised before starting this weight loss effort. The photos showing the progression of the new classrooms being built is moving. It is deeply satisfying to see the resources we gave turn into something so practical for people in such need. Stay tuned for the next post!

Lawnmowers, Funnel Cakes, and Ferris Wheels

It was Labor Day weekend here in the United States and in my current home town, Greenbelt, this holiday is a big deal. Taking inspiration from FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt, the town was built with little machinery as a works project in the 1930s. It has a strong workers, left-leaning ethic in town of cooperatives. We don’t quite sing the International (I’ve done that in Norway actually on May Day), but something just short of it.

Part of celebrating Labor Day in Greenbelt is the annual four day festival, the 54^th annual this year. Rides, games, entertainment and all sorts of local community groups with stalls selling used books (my daughters’ elementary school), t-shirts (my son’s nursery school), and especially food. None of the food is good for you. None. Period. But boy do those Democratic Party funnel cakes taste great with powdered sugar.

We were down at the festival each day (it is only two blocks from the house) to volunteer and to play. The ferris wheel offers an incomparable view of our wooded neighborhood. Couple that with a skewers party we held at our house for friends and co-workers and it adds up to a rough week for dieting. So the needle hasn’t moved much or if so, slightly in the wrong direction. So I have not adjusted the pounds total this week.

Finally, the title of this post includes lawnmowers. Old fashioned reel lawnmowers to be exact. It has nothing to do with Berga or my weight loss efforts, but I witnessed a brilliant Labor Day parade show that could ONLY occur in Old Greenbelt. The Greenbelt Reel Lawnmower Society Precision Drill Team performed and was captured on video in what is what they call an instant classic. I wanted to share it here.

Poop is No Laughing Matter, Okay It Is

This UNICEF video uses humor to make the point that sanitation issues can be funny when kids talk about it but there are real human costs that aren't so funny. I thought I would share the first part of that post here and urge you to read it all on the Woodrow Wilson Center's New Security Beat. My primary point was the hidden cost of no or poor sanitation at schools: girls often drop out or stay home once they reach puberty. The school in Berga only goes to 4th grade. Part of expanding the school to serve kids up to 8th grade will be the necessity to upgrade its sanitation facilities as well.

I was actually responding to a post by the New York Times' Andy Revkin, the most important journalist with an environmental beat at a major newspaper in the United States (he might be the only one too!).

A recent post on Andy Revkin’s Dot Earth blog—entitled “Poop is Funny, But It’s Fatal”—highlights a UNICEF World Water Day video about the necessity of destigmatizing human waste. Bacterial infections caused by contact with human waste kill 1.5 million people every year—most of them children. The stakes are high. The film uses kids and humor—two good ingredients for education through entertainment—to explain the importance of sanitation. The film emphasizes that although we may not like talking about feces, urine, toilets, and the like, we need to because the fact that 2.6 billion of us lack adequate sanitation is a fundamental threat to human health, productivity, and dignity. It’s a short film—YouTube friendly—and these are complex links, but they are key to understanding the need to invest in available technologies. The UNICEF video rightly emphasizes the additional costs of lack of sanitation, noting that girls often won’t attend school if there isn’t adequate sanitation...

And Now 21!

When you weigh a lot, your weight can change quickly, at least by the standards of you folks occupying the skinnier world. So I am pleased to report that I have finally broken through the 20 pound threshold that has been so elusive.

Intense exercise is a wonderful thing and of course key to this whole endeavor. Yesterday was one of those days, pushing up the roundball in a basketball run that I joined in 1992. Organized at first as graduate students from the University of Maryland Government and Politics Department, it has been weekly for 16 years now. Only a few faces left from those days and we have moved inside to kinder wooden floors as we got older - gone are the days of mid-day sun outside on the asphalt.

But the upshot is a push and a magic 21 popping up on the scale this morning (after some subtraction of course). Facing happy hour with former students of mine tonight so it may be short-lived but the hope is we are off the plateau!

Note of explanation on the Duke University logo - as a alumnus, one thinks Duke when one talks basketball. Just the order of things.

Back to 19

That would be pounds lost, not years old. I am finally back to the lowest total pounds lost after having a highly caloric (Bar Harbor Blueberry Ale is actually outstanding) vacation and follow-up weekend in Ohio to celebrate my folks 45th wedding anniversary. One cake wasn't enough, a neighbor friend made a second. And despite BOTH cakes having typos (ironic given Mom's English teacher background), they were quite tasty. Perhaps a little too tasty. (I should hasten to add, it was the baker and the neighbor who had the spelling difficulty, not me mum.)

So I am back to 19. Need to make a push. Waiting for that push. I am sure it is coming. Any time now. Do hope it will come. Really need to make that big jump. Also really need to add a donate here page with a Paypal account so I can really start sending this thing out to folks. The new addition to the school in Berga is just not going to get built at this pace.

Conservation: It is about People Too

"Did you know that the National Audubon Society is for people as well as birds and wildlife? I didn't. Then one day last August I received an email about an Audubon-sponsored trip to Ethiopia." So starts a piece written by one of my compatriots on the Berga site visit last November.

Ruth Ann Wiesenthal-Gold, a volunteer with Audubon in Florida, captures the perspective of the conservationist coming to better understand Ethiopia's overlapping economic, environmental, social, and political challenges by seeing them first-hand. In her piece for Big Cat Rescue, she weaves in first person narrative with statistics about Ethiopia's challenging conditions, highlighting particularly the tough roles of women and girls. Ruth Ann has been a great supporter of my Losing Pounds for Berga effort, loyally reading this points and sending notes of encouragement. It is great she is sharing her insights from having visited the Berga Wetland site with other U.S.-based conservationists who as she says, need to come to understand as she did that people and their development conditions are a key part of their conservation organization's work.

Blueberry Pancakes and All That

So a camping vacation should be a diet-friendly endeavor, yes? Lots of hiking, simple cooking, and an early bedtime to avoid those late night snacks.

Such were my hopes for our family vacation where we had six straight nights in Acadia National Park on Maine's rugged coast. Cadillac Mountain on Mt. Desert Island provides beautiful vistas when there are no clouds. Clouds being the operative word and what comes with them, rain being the true key.

So I am determined to learn how much it rained while we were in Maine for by any measure short of South Asian monsoon totals, it was a LOT! While the kids being half Danish helped - you just suit'em up in rain clothes and send them outside - we still ended up eating out much more than planned. Don't get me wrong, being stuck with Bar Harbor's lobster heavy restaurant menu isn't exactly hardship duty, it doesn't necessarily facilitate weight loss.

And the blueberries. The ones that go in the pancakes. We made the pilgrimage to Jordan's in Bar Harbor, the best blueberry pancakes I've ever had (the batter is in 3 gallon plastic drums that the cook bear hugs). And if that wasn't enough, there were ample blueberries just down at the end of our campsite. So when the rain did clear and we cooked in camp, it was a short commute to drop in the small but sweet blue nuggets.

This side alley (or more precisely) side trail digression is all prelude to saying that I gained back 3 lbs over the two weeks we were in Maine and visiting friends in Fairfield and Newport. I've lost 1/2 a pound in the first day back but still some making up to do.

Dinner with Sahlu

Greetings from Fairfield Connecticut where we are staying with friends on our way North, fleeing the heat and humidity of Washington in summer. Our ultimate destination is a week of camping in Acadia National Park, a camper and hiker's paradise. We will see how camping food and exercise is for the diet.

Before leaving we had my good friend Sahlu Haile over for dinner during his short trip to Washington for meetings with our mutual friend Heather D'Agnes. Sahlu and Heather are teaming up to support integrated population-health-environment development efforts in Ethiopia and East Africa more generally from their respective positions at the Packard Foundation and US Agency for International Development. It was wonderful for Sahlu to meet the family and tell Sofie, Emma, and Erik about Ethiopia

It was Sahlu who got me to Ethiopia the first time when he invited me, Heather, and our good friend and colleague Roger-Mark De Souza over early last year for a conference and study tour. The attached picture was from that trip that went south of Addis Ababa into the Rift Valley to see the magnificent (but often shrinking) lakes. The national parks in this area have tremendous scenery yet tremendous challenges as well. There are often more people, cattle, and crops in the parks than wildlife, the reality of a terribly poor country. I wrote "Seeing is Believing" about this trip south of Addis for our blog last year that starts...

The vista of Ethiopia’s ancient Rift Valley, speckled with shimmering lakes, stretches before me as our motorized caravan heads south from Lake Langano, part of a study tour on population- health-environment issues organized by the Packard Foundation. Sadly, the country’s unrelenting poverty and insecurity are as breathtaking as the view—Ethiopia currently ranks 170 out of 177 countries on the UN Development Programme’s Human Development Index. These numbers become quite personal when child after child sprints alongside the truck, looking for any morsel. Here, I don’t need to read between the lines of endless reports to see the country’s severe population, health, and environment challenges—they are visible in the protruding ribcages of the cattle and the barren eroding terraces in the nation’s rural highlands.

Population, Health, and Environment: Exploring the Connections in Video

I have often said on these pages that one thing that excites me about the Berga community is the dynamic nature of different ways these poor folks are trying to meet their needs. The people in the community live integrated lives with multiple challenges (education, health, livelihoods, security, sustainability of it all). They need, and are pursuing, integrated responses to meet these needs. They capitalize on resources from conservation organizations around protecting the endangered species to help pursue a basket of health, education, livelihoods strategies and programs.

I came to this village with a group of conservationists who wanted to learn about how these integrated efforts play out in local settings. One set of these programs is commonly called PHE programs for population, health, and environment where those fields connect in the field so to speak, and therefore groups that work in these areas see advantage in joined up efforts to address the community's multiple needs.

All this buildup is to say there is a great new video that explains the underlying logic of this approach. My Wilson Center colleague Sean Peoples has put together a 9 minute video featuring Dr. Lori Hunter of the University of Colorado at Boulder explaining how these issues are linked. Lori was speaking at the Environmental Change and Security Program here in Washington earlier this year and her talk is an excellent primer. Sean mixes in her powerpoint slides with her presentation so you can easily follow along as she uses photos and data from projects in the Philippines. Our hope is that the video will be useful on multiple levels and in the context of Losing Pounds for Berga, it is understanding the power of the Berga community's efforts.

Broke $500 for Berga

Slowly, slowly the pounds are coming off and the dollars are going up. Just wanted to flag the breaking of the $500 total pledged for the Berga wetland community project. It was only $600 plus that enabled the community to buy 66 sheets of corrugated steel to begin the school expansion project. So I'll keep losing weight but we need more people to pledge (or just donate a set amount now) to keep building up the pot!

On Sierra On Berga

Ethiopian population, environment and development issues came in for more attention on New Security Beat, the blog done by the Woodrow Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program. The blog post flags the Sierra Club magazine piece I mentioned in an earlier post and adds some additional links. The picture on the story is another one from the health room portion of the Berga program.

2 > 1 or 0 but < 3

So I managed to lose two more this week which I will gladly take although it is one short of the goal of three. Fourth of July week is a tough spot for making such progress but some extra manual labor provided an unexpected exercise bonus. And in what has to be a positive sign, most of what I was looking for at the Casual Male Big and Tall store was actually too big.

And I found a sunrise rather than a sunset to symbolize the optimistic outlook on the diet and the fundraising. This one is the product of jet lag in Melbourne, Australia last year.

Tough Week so Beautiful Sunset

Tough week the holiday week. Spent the latter portion with family and weight loss wasn't exactly on the agenda. We'll see how far away I am from achieving this week's goal of 3 lbs lost.

Don't have any good tie-in to this photo but I have been just looking for an excuse to use it. It is sunset in Addis Ababa and was one of the moments you wish you really were a good photographer to capture the beauty of what you are seeing. Don't read it as the sunset on the diet or my efforts to raise funds for the dynamic program in Ethiopia's Berga wetland. Pretend it is dawn breaking!

Sofie's Home

So Sofie's home from camp and she was quick to ask me if I had held up my end of the bargain. When my 8 year old went to sleep-over camp this past week, we made a deal. I would lose at least 3 pounds while she was gone. I was pleased and relieved to be able to say yes, I lost 3! Not more, not less. Need another short term goal to break this effort up into doable chunks.

Sierra Magazine Features PHE in Ethiopia

The new issue of Sierra Magazine features the story and photos of the professional journalist and photographer who visited the Berga wetland site in the same group I did last November. The story and the pictures include a few from that site visit (you will recognize health worker Gete Dida from a previous post) and many more from their much longer trip to the country. The piece captures a key part of the story - the tremendous education, health, family planning, and rights challenges for women in Ethiopia. And journalist Paul Rauber connects these challenges with the environment in ways meaningful to the people struggling to survive as well as the biodiversity (mostly birding) interests of Sierra readers. He even points out how these clash in stomach turning ways when a spectacular species is spotted just over the shoulder of a woman begging.

I'll write more about this article and the issues it raises. Great read if you want to learn more about Ethiopia through the eyes of someone visiting Africa for the first time. Photographer Ian Berry on the other hand, has been covering African issues for decades including the distinction of being the only photographer documenting the 1960 Sharpville massacre in apartheid-era South Africa.

Off to Camp Weight Loss Bargain

My daughter Sofie is off for her first sleep-over camp - an entire week! Before she left, we made a deal that I would lose at least 3 pounds while she is gone. I am down three after three days. The question is can I keep it off with the horizon dotted with temptation.

Join the Party!

More great news. I have had a lot of terrific support from colleagues here at the Woodrow Wilson Center and our Environmental Change and Security Program. Pledges of course, some "green team" lunch time walks, invitations to play weekend basketball, and general moral support. Even making sure we have fruit rather than just the same devilish cookies I have been eating at our meetings here for the past 11 years!

And now a new kind of support from colleague Meaghan Parker. Meaghan made a generous pledge of $3 per pound and promised to add to it $3 for every new Mama pound she loses!

So join the party! If you want some extra motivation for shedding, we are happy to have you on board the Losing Pounds for Berga bandwagon!

School Expansion Started!

Great news! I received an update about our efforts to help the Maru-Chebot First Cycle Elementary School from Geremew Selassie (pictured) of the Ethiopian Wildlife and Natural History Society (EWNHS). And it is good news - they have started expanding the school to go beyond 4th grade!

After returning from my visit to Ethiopia late last year, I tried a few modest things to raise some money for the Berga wetland community and this inspiring combined education, conservation, health, livelihoods project. When I had my colleagues over for a December office party for example, I suggested a donation rather than a bottle of wine or food. My 8 and 6 year old daughters helped me pick out school supplies for the kids with a focus on basics like pencils, erasers, rulers, scissors, and calculators. We sent three boxes (two of school supplies, one of clothes) and a very good friend carried over $600 we had collected from friends and family.

Geremew and his colleague Zewditu Tessema have been so very kind to bring these supplies to the community as part of EWNHS's partnership with the community. The community decided to use the $600 to purchase materials for to start expanding the school. This step is critical, as it will extend the school beyond 4th grade as the closest school for older children is 5 km away, a distance that often proves prohibitive, especially for the young girls.

Here are the key passages of Geremew's email:

We have already delivered the two boxes and 66 corrugated iron sheets for the new class rooms during a small ceremony held in the school. We will send you the pictures as soon as they are ready. The construction of additional class rooms has started. That picture too will be included.

Thank you Geoff for everything you people down there are doing for the Berga community.

Many thanks,
Geremew G

Such a modest amount of money in the big scheme of things starting to make a difference. Gives me inspiration to re-energize my weight loss effort (which has really been treading water) and try to get the word out on this effort and ones like it. Next post - soliciting ideas for going "viral" with Losing Pounds for Berga.